What should I do with my life

I have never posted here before. Posts show that there are some smart members here. I post a general question and I hope for wise advise

My name is Edgar and I am from France. I live in New Zealand at this moment. I am a programmer and I make 75 K a year.

It has been a few months that I have been thinking about my life.

I am 32 M, single and no kids.

I get to save about $250 every week. That is 13 k a year. I so far have +40 k saved. This means by end of 2013 I will have about 43 k saved and by end of 2014 I will have about 65 cash including my freelance pays and if everything stays the same by the time I am 35 I will have 100 k saved.

If I fast forward a few years. I will have a good simple life. I will never be rich or have financial independence. There are a few ways to look at this. Someone may say:

1 - Be happy with what you have. Most people are in dept suffering. Things could be a LOT worse for you. You could be making coffee for 400 a week and no skills. You could be paying for a kid and a divorce and all these scenarios. But is it really what it is to life? Make a simple living and being happy that it could be worse?

2 - On the other hand someone may say. Hey fellow. There are many ways to make more money and be more successful. You need to get more skills or move or start own business.

I am not an investor or a businessman. I know 45 k can be gone in 5 minutes in the wrong market.

Some of you here are more experienced and successful with life. You may have some good advice for me. IF you do please post. You might have been in my position and made a plan that changed your life for ever (good or bad).

If you think you have anything that can help me, please share. I appreciate good advice and discussion.

Exactly what sort of "help" do you want? You seem like you're happy doing what you're doing. If that's the case, keep on doing it. If you want something different, then do something different. That's all there is to it.

Not that happy. There is so much to do and see in the world. I feel like I am not living life. I want to be able to see my family twice a year but it costs 10k each time I go back to France. Plus my job position is not very good. If the boss decides to stop I loose my job. Not confident enough to apply for other jobs.

You don't necessarily need a "change". You need to be confident in yourself, what you know, what you are capable of and where you want to go in the future.

Originally Posted by number seven

If the boss decides to stop I loose my job.

Yeah, you and everyone else in the world. This is especially true in small business - and I'm in the same position as you are. The difference for me is that I know that if things did go belly-up here I could get another job. It's confidence in myself, and that's again all that it's about.

If you don't believe in yourself, then no one else will have a reason to believe in you. As cliché as it sounds, this is something that only you can fix.

You don't necessarily need a "change". You need to be confident in yourself, what you know, what you are capable of and where you want to go in the future.

Yeah, you and everyone else in the world. This is especially true in small business - and I'm in the same position as you are. The difference for me is that I know that if things did go belly-up here I could get another job. It's confidence in myself, and that's again all that it's about.

If you don't believe in yourself, then no one else will have a reason to believe in you. As cliché as it sounds, this is something that only you can fix.

Remember that there's no one answer to what you're asking - mainly because your question is way to vague and no one else here knows anything about your life apart from a few small details that you gave at the start.

So, what is it that you actually want to do with your life? What makes you happy? What do you see yourself doing in 5 years? 10 years? These are the questions that you need to ask yourself - and answer for yourself - before anyone else can help you. Every person in the world has their own ideas, wants, needs and dreams. You need to figure out what yours are.

You'd better start not from "what I have now" but from "what I really want".

Surely, since the question of the meaning of the life is even worse than NP-hard, it is bit troublesome - but usually all people have some preferences.

I want to create something significant and to find really interesting job. So I changed the job 4 times in 5 years and learnt many things (many of them were not worth of learning probably). I did not find the job of the dream still and I all my intended startups keep on failing miserably, however, I anyway have something to pursue and I feel quite all right.

My colleague likes to travel mystic Asian countries. She have salary only about $1500 a month (employed as QA) but she nevertheless find ways to save money and perform long trips - she was twice in India, Myanmar, Iran (and I do not remember others) and she wants to revisit some of these countries and visit many others.

Some people simply want to get married and raise children - preferably our children should be smarter and more successful than we...

So you'd better figure out what are your intentions and then simply find a way to reach them. It is not good idea to ask others what dreams you should choose for yourself.

Some people simply want to get married and raise children - preferably our children should be smarter and more successful than we...

Family is not for me for sure. I can't be responsible for other's lives. That makes it easier for me to save or do anything that has anything to do with money. Those who have kids understand me I guess.

I have many woman friends and do not feel lonely or alone ever so that is not a problem.

I want to have financial independence and I want to find out a way to do it with IT. I think I have to become more valuable as an IT guy with more skills so I get paid more and get better jobs.

I want to have financial independence and I want to find out a way to do it with IT. I think I have to become more valuable as an IT guy with more skills so I get paid more and get better jobs.

And you still haven't answer the questions that we've been asking all along.

WHAT do you want to actually do? WHAT do you want to be? We can't figure that out for you. You need to step up and take some responsibility for your own life and make your own decisions.

Figure out what it is that you want and then you can figure out how to get there. Before you have a goal to aim for you'll never do any good trying anything because you'll have no purpose, no finish line and nothing to gauge your progress on.

They have been.. http://forums.devshed.com/dev-shed-lounge-26/what-is-the-best-thing-to-do-with-50-grand-947664.html

It just got weird after a while, and still came to the same conclusion - no two people have the same idea, so it's up to you to decide.

Originally Posted by number seven

What bad could come from thinking none-programmer way. Maybe we can think out of the box. Everyone here has some life experience I guess and we all like money regardless of job.

But we've asked you over and over to decide on what you want before anything else because that's the crux of the issue. Until you can decide for yourself what you want to do with your life no one else will be able to offer you any help. The only people that would offer help for the aimless person like this would most likely be asking you for, lets say around $40,000 for their "expert" assistance. Hell, give me $20,000 and I'll tell you what to do. Be warned though, you might not like it.

As in my money saved, do you have any recommendations what to do with 40 k?

If you feel real passion for IT, then try to invest money in your education and then attempt to find a job as programmer-researcher, in google for example.

If you feel no such passion then go play with investing. Buy silver now while it is relatively low. It is volatile enough so you will eventually get some profit. At least you have no better use for them while you keep sitting and thinking. Meanwhile you'll probably dive bit deeper into this business and find new ideas.

Do not think it is a stupid idea - it is twice cheaper now than in middle of 2011...

Because I assume there are others who have been in my position.

You assume there are people who save some money and do not know what to do with them? And what kind of help you want from them?

You assume there are people who save some money and do not know what to do with them? And what kind of help you want from them?

If someone now asks me questions on how to get into programming and solve problems that took me months to fix, or ask me how to deal with break up or loss of loved one or what to on common situations, I'd be able to help them a lot and save them LOTS of time. You can too.